I moved into a dated house that came with dated kitchen appliances 70/80s. I’ve updated the floors under, the water line and gas line to them. Mostly everything around them. I’ve still kept the appliances. Still work great.
I’ll keep my money and the fridge that still does what new fridge does, keeps shit cold. And the stove that does what a new stove dies, make shit hot.
Sure it will work forever, but it also never really worked right in the first place. Those are definitely the fridges where one section freezes and other areas are almost room temp
people underestimate how useful and frequently necessary icepicks used to be.
People also have survivorship bias with these things. Sure your refrigerator might have lasted forever but quite a few others did not. There is a reason why appliance repair places existed and were much more common than today.
yeah thats because they are made intentionally uneconomical and difficult to repair now
While that is true, items are purposely made unrepairable now. You don’t have right to repair movements because John Deere and Apple devices are so much more complex to repair for common failure points. You have those movements emerging because companies make it extremely difficult in the name of profit or style. With equally skilled (and due to the internet more informed) and capable repair personnel not being able to even partake in the process.
They’ve also gotten more complex over time, increasing difficulty of repair.
Right but often unnecessarily so. Nobody asked for “smart” fridges or washing machines.
Exactly this!! The function of appliances hasn’t changed hardly at all since their inception: washers wash, dryers dry, refrigerators cool, ovens/stoves heat. No “smart” capabilities necessary, or at least nothing that simple mechanical controls and switches couldn’t handle.
Plus they’re cheaper, relative to repair professionals’ labor.
If a new refrigerator costs the same as 100 hours of skilled labor, then a 10 hour repair job (plus parts that cost the same as 1/10 of a refrigerator) will be economically feasible.
But if a new fridge costs the same as 20 hours of skilled labor, and the more complex parts come in more expensive assemblies, then there’s gonna be more jobs don’t pass a cost benefit threshold. As a category, refrigerator repair becomes unfeasible, and then nobody gets skilled in that field.
That’s to increase perceived obsolescence, where it still works okay but the bells and whistles broke. Also why they put pretty colorful thread on fancy truck seats. Your ass wears it off and makes an $80k truck look ratty.
I bet there is a Technology Connections video on this.
If I remember correctly there is.
There is no problem in sticking second compressor wirhout greatly reducing fridge lifespan.
But is it AI?
Its not fully the fault of tech companies, yeah there is some planned obselecence. But there won’t be anymore “I will outlive you” appliances cause the more mechanical it gets the more cheaper and easier it is to repair and they also tends to have less individual components.
I don’t think any of those new smartish watches even from the best of Swizz makers could last like it did 100years ago.
Yeah, growing up we had a harvest gold Frigidaire from the 1970s. It didn’t leave us, we left it.
(Don’t miss the gallons of ice water in the freezer that had to be defrosted every few months.)
I guess one could make the claim that an automatic defrost system is a luxury, lol
I see your refrigerator and raise you a freestanding oven. The one with coils.
Just bought a brand new shitty fridge, can’t wait for it to die next year
I had one that lasted 15 years. In that time it had to be repaired twice, and the rail for the drawers broke out so I had no crispers. It was remarkably expensive.
Last one I got was free so I can’t really complain lol but I also have no idea how old it was
Today’s products are built to just barely cross some finish line and not a day longer. It’s bad for you, and bad for the environment.
Enshittification, also known as the overall tendency of profit to decline.
Don’t buy the overly fancy fridges: Buy a basic one from a decent company and it will probably last for years.
Decent company = not Samsung or LG
Maytag and its subbrands can actually be fixed and parts are available long term
I bought a fridge only (no freezer) 20 years ago and it’s still chugging along. 🤜🌳 Made in Canada even.
No freezer? Do you have a separate reach in freezer? Can’t imagine life without a freezer
Yes we have a normal sized fridge that’s only a fridge, and a large chest freezer.
In Canada, your yard is the freezer.
There’s two sides of the spectrum really. Buy cheap but durable or really fork out and buy commercial-grade. Both will require maintenance and yes one costs more to maintain and requires a contractor to install but if done correctly it’ll last 20+ years and be consistent. Same applies to other kitchen hardware.
Brands: Sub-Zero, Wolf, Viking, Coldline
These aren’t like the overpriced Samsung/LG whatever. They don’t have any special wifi/tech. Just rugged industrial motors, lines, and insulation designed to be operated at high use daily.
Moreso, the fridge will stop working in two years cause that is when their subscription cloud service to access your fridge will be updated with firmware that is no longer compatible.
Also the required app will no longer be supported
My fridge doesn’t have a TPM chip and won’t upgrade to FridgeOS 11.
A fridge is a fridge, the basic mechanical working principle of it didn’t change over the past 40 years. But people have a lot more expectations put into what a fridge should be able to do nowadays, and electronics or complex mechanism such as the ice maker is generally the first to break on a modern fridge.
The moral of the story is, don’t buy a fridge with an icemaker or have a tablet attached to it, and you should be fine.
I used to rent this tiny little house from an elderly couple a little over a decade ago. It was their first house when they got married in the late 40s and they’d been renting it out since they moved to a bigger house in the 50s. In all that time the refrigerator has been replaced ONCE in like 1968 and that fridge still worked perfectly when I moved out lol
For real, we bought a fridge in November and it is already breaking
Back when my dad bought a new whirlpool fridge, it didn’t take long for the LEDs inside to start failing.
Yeah, but can you survive a hydrogen bomb blast in a 1980s fridge? No, you need a 1950s fridge for that.
Thnx Indiana
We called the dog Indiana.
It’s the lead lining.
